One of the world’s most celebrated footwear designers, Christian Louboutin is celebrating 25 years of his brand and he wanted to make the year really special. So what he did was to convert his love for Calcutta and his bond with Sabyasachi into a collaborative collection that he would take to the whole world. The result is an exquisite India-inspired line of shoes that is travelling to the most exclusive fashion stores across the globe.

The tour started from Harrods in London on October 11, and will roll on to New York, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, Dubai and Paris.

Before heading out to conquer the world with his creativity, Sabya told t2oS how the Christian Louboutin-Sabyasachi ‘Calcutta’ collection was born.

When Christian came to Calcutta, he loved the city. He thinks Calcutta is one of the most beautiful cities he’s ever visited... he loves to come back again and again. So he always told me he wants to do a Calcutta collaboration with me that he wants to take to the whole world. And then one day when he came to my factory he came to this room where my borders are stored... he asked me what these are... I said these are all sari borders from my archives... so he said can we make a collection with these things... a patchworked, very gypsy bohemian kind of a collection? So we did a small collection and he showed it to a few stores who loved it and then we decided we will do a global launch.

Christian is like a child, he is very fond of animation. He said we will do an animation comic book first for the story of the whole collection. It released on my Instagram (@sabyasachiofficial)... 18 pictures which tells the story of how the collaboration started.

Basically he has made it a little fictitious. So he has based it on the story that there is a very famous Indian actress who is constantly looking for beautiful things and she came to my Bombay store and she fainted... there is a curse that is put on her that if you do not find a product of remarkable beauty in the next 40 days, she will die. So every day she will wake up for half an hour and somebody has to show her something. So somebody brings Brad Pitt, somebody brings a poodle and this and that.

Christian is in Paris when an angel visits him in his sleep and tells him that there is this Indian designer called Sabyasachi who makes very beautiful clothes, and he really needs you to make a beautiful shoe with him to save this Indian actress, otherwise she will die.

Then Christian comes to India, he meets me and together we make a beautiful sari and a beautiful shoe inspired by the sari and the actress gets saved, and Christian and I become the best of friends. The actress gets married to the angel and they fly away.

He wanted to shoot the story with Deepika (Padukone), because he just loves Deepika, but there was a problem with her dates, so we shot it with Archana (model). So this is how he is presenting the story of our collaboration, of how my saris inspire him to make his shoes and handbags.

Christian has many stores all over the world, but he wanted to present it to the best. In London we show at Harrods, then Bergdorf Goodman in New York, where Linda Fargo — one of the world’s most influential people in fashion — will interview Christian and me. Then in LA we will be showing in Just One Eye, which is a Hollywood insider store... any day you go you will see a Holly star sitting there, because they curate the most exclusive stuff from all over the world. All designers make exclusive collections for them because whatever is in Just One Eye goes to the Oscars and other red carpets... so all Christian’s actress friends will come for that.

It’s a limited-edition collection and every shoe is one piece... he has used all my borders and embroideries, they’re all from my archives, from Frog Princess to Batair, to Nair Sisters....  He’s calling the collection ‘Calcutta to Paris’. He wanted me to show my bridal collection with the shoes, but I am showing the best of what I do... so it’s the best of my work on western silhouettes like miniskirts, bomber jackets and more.

Sabyasachi’s collaboration with Christian Louboutin is one of his most successful till now and has thrown up many a striking collection over the past couple of years. Coming up next are Sabya-CL sneakers… a line of sports shoes with embroidered Indian fabrics. “They’re going to be fabulous!” promises Sabya.

— Smita Roy Chowdhury